Ethernet is a family of frame-based computer networking technologies for local area networks (LANs). Ethernet defines a number of wiring and signaling standards for the physical layer of the open systems interconnection (OSI) networking model. These wiring and signaling standards define network access at the media access control (MAC)/data link layer, and a common addressing format.
A local area network (LAN) may include Ethernet endpoints, which communicate with each other by sending and receiving other data packets. Data packets are blocks of data having one or more frames and contain user data. Each Ethernet endpoint is given a single 48-bit media access control address, which is used to specify both the destination and the source of each data packet. Data packets addressed to other Ethernet endpoints are generally not accepted by a receiving endpoint for security reasons.
Accurately determining the number of data frames lost during transmission is important for at least financial billing purposes. For example, if excessive number (e.g., above 50% or other agreed upon threshold) of data frames are lost during a number of consecutive measurement periods, then the service is declared “unavailable.” A financial bill may be adjusted accordingly.